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It's ev.news Briefly for Thursday 13 August 2026, only todays headlines and nothing else, in just 4 minutes if you haven't got time for the full show.

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EARLY EV SWITCH CUT CO2 IN 92% OF UCSC SCENARIOS

A University of California Santa Cruz study published in Science modelled over 400 vehicle scenarios and found that in 92% of them, switching to an electric car as soon as possible cut more emissions than keeping the combustion car, with the roughly three-year manufacturing carbon debt offset after about 21,500 kilometres in the case of the BMW iX3. Scrapping the old car rather than selling it cut lifecycle emissions by up to 44%, because selling it simply passes the petrol burning to someone else, though coal-heavy grids weaken the case and the study measured carbon rather than cost.

EV VOLUMES FORECASTS 23.3M PLUG-IN SALES IN 2026, UP 7.8%
EV Volumes expects global light-vehicle sales to fall in 2026 on economic and geopolitical pressures while plug-in sales rise 7.8% to about 23.3 million, taking share to 25.7% as BEVs climb 17.2% to an 18.5% share and PHEVs drop 10.6% to 7.2%. America is the drag, with US EV sales down 32.9% to 415,968 and a further 15% contraction forecast for 2026, while Western and Central Europe supplies the growth at 1.9 million sales, up 29.7%.

JAGUAR REVEALS TYPE 01 INTERIOR BEFORE 6 OCTOBER NEW YORK UNVEILING
Jaguar has shown the uncamouflaged cabin of the Type 01, the four-seat GT leading its reinvention as an all-electric luxury marque, with a central spine splitting the interior into four single-seat compartments, a sparse dashboard carrying only a driver display and small touchscreen, and finishes in travertine stone and artisan textiles. Like the Polestar 4 it has no rear window or mirror, relying on a camera feed, and the car appears at Monterey Car Week this weekend in fresh camouflage before its New York unveiling on 6 October.

VW TO SHOW ELECTRIC ID. CALIFORNIA CRUISE AT CARAVAN SALON
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will give the ID. Buzz-based ID. California Cruise its world premiere at Caravan Salon in Düsseldorf from 28 August to 6 September, calling it the first fully electric California and the foundation of a family of electric campervans. Alongside it is a concept for the California Beach featuring an inflatable kitchen under 10kg developed with Stuff Bubble and a convertible bed module of roughly 200 x 134cm, removable kit that lets buyers trade equipment weight against range.

WAYMO HAS 684 FINISHED OJAI ROBOTAXIS WAITING AT MESA
A tracker counting Waymo's Mesa, Arizona site found 953 Ojai robotaxis, of which 684 are finished and idle without passengers, up from around 500 in early June, alongside 12 completed Hyundai IONIQ 5 robotaxis. The Zeekr-built, Magna-converted Ojai carries the sixth-generation Waymo Driver with 13 cameras and four lidars for under $20,000 per vehicle, and is intended to replace the ageing Jaguar I-Pace fleet across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

YASA WINS DRIVE35 GRANT FOR RARE-EARTH-FREE AXIAL FLUX MOTORS
Oxford axial flux motor maker YASA has won UK government funding through the DRIVE35 Demonstrate competition for Project Resilience, which pursues two rotor pathways built on its existing stator, one using magnets free of heavy rare earths and one removing rare earths entirely. The work addresses a concentrated and politically exposed supply chain, but risks heat performance, and runs across the Mercedes-Benz subsidiary's Oxford, Bicester and Welshpool sites, which employ more than 300 people.

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